Updating a Channel

There are two ways to update a channel with the Stream API: partial updates and full updates. A partial update preserves existing custom key–value data, while a full update replaces the entire channel object and removes any fields not included in the request.

Partial Update

A partial update lets you set or unset specific fields without affecting the rest of the channel’s custom data — essentially a patch-style update.

// Here's a channel with some custom field data that might be useful const channel = client.channel(type, id, {  source: "user",  source_detail: { user_id: 123 },  channel_detail: { topic: "Plants and Animals", rating: "pg" }, });  // let's change the source of this channel await channel.updatePartial({ set: { source: "system" } });  // since it's system generated we no longer need source_detail await channel.updatePartial({ unset: ["source_detail"] });  // and finally update one of the nested fields in the channel_detail await channel.updatePartial({ set: { "channel_detail.topic": "Nature" } });  // and maybe we decide we no longer need a rating await channel.updatePartial({ unset: ["channel_detail.rating"] });

Full Update

The update function updates all of the channel data. Any data that is present on the channel and not included in a full update will be deleted.

const update = await channel.update({  name: "myspecialchannel",  color: "green", });

Request Params

NameTypeDescriptionOptional
channel dataobjectObject with the new channel information. One special field is “frozen”. Setting this field to true will freeze the channel. Read more about freezing channels in “Freezing Channels”
textobjectMessage object allowing you to show a system message in the Channel that something changed.Yes

Updating a channel using these methods cannot be used to add or remove members. For this, you must use specific methods for adding/removing members, more information can be found here.

Adding & Removing Channel Filter Tags

Using the addFilterTags() method adds tags to categorize a channel, while removeFilterTags() removes them.

const channel = client.channel("messaging", "support-123");  // Add filter tags await channel.addFilterTags(["premium", "urgent"]);  // Remove filter tags await channel.removeFilterTags(["urgent"]);

Limits: A channel can have a maximum of 10 tags total. Each tag is limited to 255 characters. Tags are automatically sorted and deduplicated by the system.

Filter tags can also be set when creating the channel. See Creating Channels for more details, and Querying Channels for filtering channels by tags.